How big did some of you guys get your home haunts before you moved them? I would love to have a stand alone yearly attraction, but I don't wanna get the cart before the horse.

Ours was about 15 min. involved garage, driveway,front yard and side of the house with around 13 to 16 actors and we ran the home haunt for 14 years we are now on our 21st year haunting. We are now a pro haunt and are half hour to 45 min and runs best with about 25 actors min. We are making a second one this year.

Hello, everyone! I want to build a haunted house, kind of. Actually, we own a spooky military bombshell. The bombshell is about 1200 square meters (0,3 acres), it is fireproof, clean and safe. Safety is our number one priority. I want to build a bunch of decorations in Silent Hill theme, Texas Chainsaw Massacre theme, etc (a lot of ideas, actually). And, of course, we plan to use the actors.

But, the main question is - have you ever been sued because of the reason like "they scared me SO MUCH that i peed myself, some other guests laughed at me and now i feel unconfident and uncomfortable"? Yes, i do realise that scary things supposed to scare people and guests pay to get scared, but... what if? Do you have problems with that issue? How do you solve it?

Despite how low it ended up in the polls, do not underestimate the power of sound. When I was a kid, there was a house in our subdivision that used to play scary music out the windows on Halloween. There were other kids & parents who would actually avoid going to that house just because they had spooky sounds! That had no actors, props... Just scary sounds! Movies and TV have conditioned the public to enter a state of fear upon hearing certain types of music and sound effects. It's automatic. The best part is that it's cheaper than ever to get portable sound systems for your haunt. You can buy old MP3 players and computer speakers very cheaply on eBay. You also don't necessarily need to limit yourself to just one system either. Maybe you could have an MP3 player playing scary music, and another playing a scary sound effects album? We have a medium-sized yard/tent/garage haunt, but we still have SIX different sound systems (one at the entrance, one in each of three tents, one in the garage, and one for the outdoor sections between tents).

Also as a previous poster noted, they can close their eyes to avoid the visual scares, but most people won't block out the sounds! When people hear scary music and sounds, their own imaginations do half the work of scaring them.

I know there have been no new posts, but I will add some more advice. –
09-08-2015

All ideas considered in the poll are all good things to consider, and I think that they are all very important BUT they do not serve the purpose well if not used properly/correctly.

I think the more realistic you can make things look, feel, sound, smell....really sells a person on what they are observing or experiencing as truly being real and paints an image in their mind that they won't forget.

For me I am against the more theatrical elements that haunts have used or use today, but for them it works and there is a time or place for every thing.

If you're going to build or make something from scratch, take your time and make it as authentic as possible, and yes there are times when we have all used cheap props from retail stores because that is our only option at the time, this is ok too I have done it.

More pride comes from things made "by you" or friends, speaking of friends these people are important as it takes a lot of work planning and building everything from the ground up by yourself. Of course I have found it kind of hard to find those people that share the same passion as you do.

Everyone has their own ideas, and it helps to brain storm with everyone, my last piece of advice would be to not be afraid to keep things simple.

Best of luck to everybody and their new adventure in haunting rather it be at the home level or commercial.